Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill spoke via video conference about the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and the hopes for a peaceful solution, the Vatican said.

A Pew Research Center study has found that only one-fourth of U.S. Black Catholics worship in majority-Black parishes.

The leader of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States said March 15 that he hoped leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church would “open up and hear the Gospel,” which says, “Do not kill,” and tell Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop killing innocent Ukrainians.

Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary during a penitential prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica March 25, the Vatican said.

The call to prayer is an “active mission,” one that does not take a believer from the world but prompts the believer to bring to God the pain and concerns of the world — including the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis said.

Appealing again for an end to the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis said those who invoke God to promote or justify violence “profane his name.”

The chairmen of several U.S. bishops’ committees and the head of March for Life March 11 praised the U.S. senators who voted to pass the government’s omnibus bill with the Hyde Amendment and other pro-life provisions included in it.

Franciscan Father James E. Goode, whose evangelizing work among Black Catholics became known throughout the United States and earned him the title “dean of Black Catholic preachers,” died in his sleep March 4 in New York. He was 81.

At the behest of Pope Francis, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, arrived in Poland March 7 to offer encouragement and material help to Ukrainian refugees and the volunteers assisting them. Two days later, he crossed the border into Ukraine.

Just a day after a U.S. House commission’s hearing on holding Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable for “war crimes and aggression against Ukraine,” his military forces carried out an airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol in the East European country.